


from the future

by sombregods



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: ... sort of, Alternate Universe - Regency, Bucolic Descriptions of the Countryside at Dawn, Communication Issues, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:14:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28549968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sombregods/pseuds/sombregods
Summary: Lord Dimitri Alexandre, Earl of Blaiddyd, was accustomed from a very young age—in fact, from infancy—to the notion that he should have everything he wished for. He was raised to believe that his rank was at once a privilege and an honour, a blessing and a duty.An almost-Regency Dimilix AU.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 7
Kudos: 58





	from the future

**Author's Note:**

  * For [androgenius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/androgenius/gifts).



> For Tam, whose birthday is today, & whom I adore. ❤️ Happy birthday, my darling.

Lord Dimitri Alexandre, Earl of Blaiddyd, was accustomed from a very young age—in fact, from infancy—to the notion that he should have everything he wished for. He was raised to believe that his rank was at once a privilege and an honour, a blessing and a duty. 

His father Lambert, the then Earl, was an excellent lord and master, kindly to his tenants and generous to his servants, loving to his first, then—after disaster struck—to his second wife, and most affectionate with his one and only son, his heir, the future Earl. He raised him in the understanding that one born to such riches and privileges as a title should be conscious of his burdens as well as of his freedoms. As a consequence, Dimitri was given everything a lavish education could offer—he studied the Classics as well as mathematics and science, economy, social philosophy, artistry, languages living and dead, fencing, riding, dancing, and the proper etiquette so as to be widely accepted when time came to enter school, then university, then society itself. 

Although he was a dedicated student on these various topics, and an obedient and attentive son to his father and step-mother, there was little young Dimitri loved better than going out to ride, play, or hunt with his childhood companions. Three were especially close to his young lordship. 

Sylvain Gautier, son of the Margrave, was a charming and exuberant boy, if at times a trifle fatiguing by his endless teasing; Ingrid Galatea, disregarding her family’s admonishments, preferred horse-riding to more ladylike pursuits, such as embroidery or tapestry; and Felix Hugo Fraldarius, the son of Rodrigue Fraldarius, Lambert’s closest friend and associate, had from infancy been destined to become Dimitri’s closest friend—closest in age, in temperament, and in affection. 

It became not unusual for the servants of Blaiddyd Hall to see the two boys rampaging around, playing with wooden swords and wooden horses. As they both grew, the swords became true and the horses also—ponies at first, and then, on the occasion of Dimitri’s twelfth birthday, a fine bay gelding. Nor was it unusual for little Felix to start crying when it became time for him to leave Blaiddyd Hall. His father visited Lambert often, and as their estates abutted each other the two boys were often together for days at a time; but when such time came that they should separate, the tantrums young lord Fraldarius was prone to throwing became swiftly legendary. Only Dimitri could soothe his tears and quieten his longing, with promises of long letters, and assurances that they should meet again very, very soon. 

Then Felix would be taken up by his father in their carriage, and would wave, his face still splotchy with tears, as they rode away. Lambert would put his hand upon his son’s shoulder, and comment with some amusement: “Your friend loves you very dearly, Dimitri.”

Dimitri would flush, but he would stay until the carriage had fairly disappeared in the distance. 

When they reached the age of fourteen, however, something of a dire nature changed between the two boys. They had not, at this time, seen each other in some months; Lambert and Rodrigue’s respective familial affairs had taken one to Town and the other to the country, and Felix and Dimitri were perforce separated. Letters from Felix, which usually came fast and fierce to Blaiddyd Hall, became sparser during this period of time; when they did come, they were overly formal and oddly stilted. Dimitri could make neither heads nor tails of it. He longed to see his friend again: he had found a small creek in the adjoining woods, where he and Felix would be sure to spend many long afternoons chasing after frogs, splashing each other till they were soaked, and hunting rabbits. So too did he wish to tell his friend the myriad of boyish thoughts that went through his mind—his own letters full of them, filled to bursting point with exclamation marks and entreatments to write back. 

When they did meet again, however, all of Dimitri’s expectations were put aside for good. 

Down from the carriage came not the flushed, happy boy who ran at Dimitri before the horses had even stopped, but a slender young man, holding himself very straight, at his father’s side. He looked extremely grave, and unbearably sad. Rodrigue beside him was drawn and grey-faced, and looked to have aged a decade in a year.

And as Dimitri advanced to welcome them, Felix looked him straight in the eye, bowed a practiced, stiff bow, and said, in a clear and dispassionate voice: 

“My lord.”

This was how Dimitri learned that Felix’s elder brother Glenn—Rodrigue’s pride and joy, his heir, the hero of the family, and Felix’s personal champion—had died in the war that raged between Faerghus and the Adrestian Empire. 

.

The passing of years did little to change this state of affairs. Though they went to school together, Dimitri and Felix were no longer close. Sylvain and Ingrid, having grown inured to their duties to the young Earl, spoke to him with a mixture of respect and distanced awe. Dimitri, thus abandoned, found some respite in the friendship of a Duscur boy, Dedue, with whom he spent most of his time; but even Dedue’s loyalty and companionship could not soothe the ache Dimitri felt whenever he looked at Felix. It felt like a loss—it _was_ a loss, a grief, a mourning. For the first time in his young, golden life, Dimitri knew what it was to want something and not to have it. 

Felix himself was strangely angry. Angry at Dimitri—angry at Sylvain and Ingrid—angry at Dedue, whom he seemed to detest for no reason whatever; angry at his father most of all. He was no longer the crybaby boy Dimitri had loved so well. They were no longer the children who had played so innocently together. Felix had been visited by death, and resented the world for having taken his beloved brother away from him. He refused to talk to Dimitri. When Dimitri came into a room, he walked away, unmindful of the etiquette he was breaking in doing so. 

This went on for three aching, painful years, until, at the young age of seventeen, Dimitri was called back to Blaiddyd Hall by his father, who wished him to take control of the estate whilst he departed for business in Town. 

“It will be good practice for you,” Lambert advised, as he climbed into his carriage beside his wife, and bestowed an affectionate smile upon his son. “One day this estate will be your own. It is right that you should learn to manage it before all its responsibilities and duties fall upon you.”

“You will live to a grand old age, Father,” Dimitri protested, and Lambert laughed merrily as the carriage ambled away. 

.

It was during the third week of Dimitri’s managing his once-to-be estate that he heard tell of the Fraldarius heir returning to his father’s house. 

“Are you certain?” he asked of his housekeeper, his quill poised above the letter he was penning. “Is it not Rodrigue who has come?” For last he had heard of Felix, he resided still at Garrech Mach monastery, with Sylvain and Ingrid. 

“No, my lord,” Mrs. Peters said staunchly. “‘Tis the young heir—Felix Hugo. Your own bosom companion, my lord, if you’ll permit me.”

Dimitri considered this. Etiquette dictated he write to Felix, pay his respects, congratulate him on returning to the neighbourhood, and invite him to dinner. This was daunting. But it was, perhaps, the chance to reconnect, here in Blaiddyd Hall, where as children they had been so happy ... “Thank you, Mrs. Peters. I am glad for this news.”

The housekeeper beamed and departed, though not before she had quizzed him as to what he desired for his supper. Dimitri, who had little sense of taste and was prone to working late into the night without eating a bite, smiled politely and invited her to pay his compliments to the cook. This was not, he knew, how his father had managed Blaiddyd Hall, nor how his step-mother had governed her servantry. But, as accustomed as he was to giving orders, he disliked obsequiousness and dictatorship both. If Dimitri’s wishes alone were considered, he would have eaten the hearty stew served in the Servants’ Hall with greater pleasure than all the quails and partridges in the world. 

For two days thereafter he hesitated to write to Felix. He dreaded being sent back into the dumps, as he had been at school. Felix had not wavered _then_ in his contempt and derision of Dimitri: all the determined hero-worship he had shown as a boy had vanished in the years since his brother’s demise. It was likely Dimitri’s letter would be sent back unopened, or else ignored altogether. Dimitri, in whose breast his feelings for Felix had never diminished or altered, could not countenance such an outcome, and so he wrote not. 

In the end, however, the decision was taken from his hands. As the weather turned cold (it was oncoming winter, and the leaves were bronze and gold), it became a habit that he saddled his horse and took a tour around the woods surrounding Blaiddyd Hall, before the evening fell. This was soothing, for his days were filled to bursting with the management of his estate: the economy and agronomy of it. Having an hour or two to himself was a respite. 

On one of these outings, perhaps four days after the news of Felix’s arrival in the neighbourhood were brought to his attention, he encountered his oldest friend in the well-made lanes of the woods. 

Felix was riding also, a spotted mare. Upon catching sight of Dimitri, he brought up short, and his lips parted. His eyes were thunderous. 

They stared at each other. 

Dimitri was suddenly, uncomfortably, aware that he had grown taller than Felix in the last few years. They had been the same height as children, and he was sublimely conscious of the differences between them now. His own hair was cut short, less for fashion and more for practicality’s sake; but Felix’s was pulled up at the back of his head, and a few strands escaped, framing his eyes and his delicate face. 

_Delicate_. He would loathe Dimitri even more, were Dimitri to phrase his thoughts so aloud. 

Felix’s jaw clenched. Without a word, he dug his heels into the flanks of his mare and whirled around. Before Dimitri could think to call out his name or go after him, he had engaged himself with determination into a lane that branched off to the left, towards Fraldarius Manor, and soon he was gone around a bend in the road and disappeared. Only the echo of him remained. 

Dimitri closed his eyes. He returned home. 

“Begging your pardon, my lord,” said his stablemaster, when Dimitri threw the reins of his horse into his hand and without a word jumped down from the saddle. “Are you well?”

“Perfectly well,” Dimitri snapped, and then regretted his harsh tone immediately. He offered his man a smile and strode into Blaiddyd Hall, intent on working through the night with nothing but a brandy at his elbow: intent on forgetting that Felix was but a few miles away, in a room of his own, alone likewise, and, perhaps, thinking of him still. 

. 

Felix did not let him forget long. The very next day, as Dimitri, groggy from a few spare hours of sleep, slumped in his library, half-heartedly reading his father’s latest (and expansive) missive, he announced himself with a fracas. 

Dimitri rose hurriedly, putting the letter away in his breast pocket. Felix was introduced into the library by the butler, who looked disapproving at the crushingly unexpected arrival of such an inappropriate guest. He was dressed in a riding-coat dusted with rain, and his boots were far from immaculate; he looked furious, and slapped his riding-whip against his thigh as he marched into the library. 

“Felix,” Dimitri said, with one hand sustaining him on the back of his armchair. “This is—ah, unexpected?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Felix snapped, his eyes flashing up to Dimitri’s. “I’m only here because I promised my father to deliver—this.”

He thrust forward a letter. Dimitri blinked, and advanced towards his friend to take it. This brought them in close contact. Felix turned his head away, as though it pained him to look at him. 

“Thank you,” said Dimitri, earnestly. “You might have … you might have posted it, however.”

“I told Rodrigue I’d give it to you myself,” Felix said, crushingly, but a telltale flush was on his cheekbones. Dimitri smiled.

“Thank you, then. Is it raining? You must wait here ‘till it stops. Might I interest you in a brandy?”

Felix opened his lips as though to reply in anger; and then closed them. Then he closed his eyes, and Dimitri was struck with the sight of his eyelashes falling against his cheeks, shielding the colour within. “Yes,” he said, between gritted teeth. “Thank … you.”

“My pleasure.”

Dimitri poured the brandy, thankful to turn his back for half a moment, for the sight of Felix, with color high on his face—from riding, no doubt—and his eyes bright with a slow-burning fury, made his heart tremble. Their fingers brushed as he passed him the glass, and Felix jerked his arm back hurriedly, as though burned. “How _is_ Rodrigue?”

“In Town,” said Felix, looking at him strangely. “With Lambert.” This was true: Dimitri’s father had mentioned it. Dimitri felt a fool. 

“Oh.” He sought for something else to say. “Have you been in the neighbourhood long?”

“A few days.”

“Do you mean to remain?”

“No idea,” Felix said shortly, and sipped his brandy without seeming to taste it at all. His eyes flicked up to Dimitri. Finding him gazing back—helplessly—he looked away again. 

“Do you—” Dimitri hesitated; surely it should not be so hard to be in the same room again? “Do you ride often? As I have seen you—yesterday—”

A short, harsh laugh. “Don’t worry. I shan’t intrude on your lands anymore.”

“That is not—what I mean.” Dimitri was flustered, troubled. “Of course you are free to go wherever you please. I should … I should like … ”

“Get on with it.” Felix’s eyes were downcast, his brow furrowed in apparent anger. Dimitri could not know upon whom that anger was directed. 

He cleared his throat. “I should like to show you such a place as I have found, of late. I believe you would like it.” _You would have liked it, in the past. Would you still? Would you come with me? Would you want me, still, with you?_

Felix tossed back the last of his brandy without a shiver. “That seems … feasible.”

“Tomorrow, then?” Dimitri offered, grasping that olive branch for all its worth. “I will call upon you at—shall we say, ten?”

“Fine.” Felix’s gaze flicked to the door; in spirit he was already gone. But then it returned to Dimitri, and in his eyes was something strangely soft. “Get some sleep,” he instructed. “You look like you haven’t slept all night. It’s pathetic.”

.

Despite Felix’s command, Dimitri found himself up at six the next morning. As his valet dressed him in his riding-habit, he watched the sun rise gingerly up over the horizon, casting the landscapes around Blaiddyd Hall into rushes of red and orange. 

It was strange to think that Felix was so near—that he had been, last night, in Dimitri’s own home, inches away from him, and once again close enough to touch. When they were boys, the distance between Blaiddyd Hall and Fraldarius Manor had seemed so great they could never breach it on their own. Now, however, Dimitri forwent breakfast, saddled his favourite horse, and was out in a breath. It was a matter of a few miles, if that, ‘till he was with Felix again. As he rode through the woods, the light penetrated the branches, turning each of the leaves to molten gold. 

He was early. He knew he was early, and thought of lingering by a stream just outside the bounds of Fraldarius Manor for a little while. But as he pondered this, and began to turn his horse in that direction, he saw, in the near distance, over the nearest hill, the figure of a man riding also, in his way. Within moments he knew it was Felix. There was no mistaking him. 

Dimitri went out to him, and as a result they met beneath a great arch of white roses, near a thicket of walnut trees. 

“You’re up early,” Dimitri observed, as their horses nosed at each other. 

“ _You_ ’re up early,” Felix shot back, and for a moment it was just as it was when they were children, quarrelling uselessly over the merest thing. Dimitri laughed. Felix scowled. “I should have known,” he added, with a pique of contempt, “that you wouldn’t be able to stay away.”

“Never,” Dimitri said agreeably, turning his horse in to fall at Felix’s side. “Shall we get on?”

Felix looked disdainful, but a wash of red was touching his cheeks. He nodded. 

For a while they rode in a silence that was strangely comfortable, for all their past stiff awkwardness. The brisk country air was freeing them of their confines, making the past seem very far away; it was, Dimitri felt, as though he had breached the gap of years since that awful day when Felix had bowed to him. Instead he now found Felix’s hand, outstretched to meet his. As though they had been waiting for this very moment to reconcile. He stole glances at his—yes, his friend, Felix would always be his friend, no matter what _he_ thought of it—and found him looking straight ahead, riding very well, though without any of Ingrid or Sylvain’s passion; his hands were loose around his reins, and his hips were moving in rhythm with the comfortable amble of his horse. 

Dimitri was fascinated. As a boy, Felix had been poor with horses. Now he saw the differences, the characteristic changes that had turned Felix from a child to a young man. His features were angular and fine, his mouth set in a hard, dark line; his hair was a shock of black against the pallor of his skin. He was neither particularly tall nor particularly broad, but there was in the slenderness of his limbs a hidden strength that called out to Dimitri, made him aware of him, every inch of him, every part of him. When Felix turned his eyes in Dimitri’s direction, it took his breath away.

“What?”

“What?”

“You’re staring.”

“My apologies,” Dimitri said, with a smile. “I did not realize.”

“Right,” said Felix, clearly unconvinced. “Where’s that place you wanted to show me?”

“Oh—” Dimitri pointed: “Across those woods, beyond the plain. Closer to Blaiddyd Hall, beneath the crag. There is a creek there we never found as boys. The precipice that surmounts it is too steep and dangerous to climb with horses, but there are hazel and birch trees that grow there in copses, and ferns, and wildflowers. The stream falls thinly at that point, and forms a … pond, I suppose: a pool where wild animals come to drink. The water is too cold to bathe in at this time of year, but … ” He stopped, amazed: the moment he had mentioned bathing, Felix’s cheekbones had blazed red. He struggled, swallowed, continued: “The clearing is wide, and the grass is lush. I thought we might repast there,” and pointed to the pack he had brought with him, filled to bursting with offerings from his cook. 

“That sounds … ” Felix stopped, then said: “Good.”

They arrived at a stile, which opened into what was, in the summer, a wheat field. The sun had by this time come up entirely, and though the pasture was thick and low, it burned almost reddish in that startling light. Dimitri closed the stile behind them, and only just caught Felix throwing at him: “Race you to the end of the field,” before he was gone, digging his heels into his horse’s flanks and breaking into a gallop.

Dimitri cursed and followed in a breath, though not quickly enough. Felix was ahead of him, riding hell-for-leather through the soft, low wheat grass, limned in the nascent sunlight. For long minutes they galloped thus, one after the other; but Felix was the poorer rider, and Dimitri’s was the better horse. Slowly he gained an inch, and then another, until they were going head-to-head. 

And Dimitri saw that Felix was smiling, confident and sure as he always was. He started to laugh, and that laugh carried through the wind until Felix looked back at him with the sun in his eyes, and echoed it. 

.

The creek lay at the bottom of the woods, beneath a craggy drop that rose dizzyingly above the treetops. Dimitri led the way inside, ducking underneath the branches, as the path there was old and had long gotten lost amidst the bracken. This opened into a large, mostly circular clearing through which the stream (still thin at this time of year, but it would grow stronger and larger with the colder, damper months) carried petals and leaves and small sticks. At the very bottom of the cliff, a deep pond opened, which looked blue in the right light. 

Dimitri jumped down from his horse, moving to tie his reins loosely around a tree trunk. Felix hesitated, then followed suit. It was getting warmer; the sun through the branches was the true gold of nearly-noon. And Dimitri was hungry—not so much for food but for companionship, for the friendship they had lost, and which he was at pains to restore, slowly, moment after moment, smile after smile. 

Felix walked a few steps to the edge of the pond and, looking into its depths, said distantly: “Why did we never find this place when we were boys?”

“I found it,” Dimitri heard himself saying, “when we were boys.” He sobered. “Just before … 

“Before Glenn died,” Felix said, his face closing. 

“Yes.” Anything, anything at all to help the horrible expression in Felix’s eyes now. “I thought you might enjoy the frogs,” Dimitri said, faltering. 

“We’re too old to care about frogs,” Felix said. In the stream of light that was falling from the hole in the clearing, he was awash with the pond’s blue reflects. He looked as though he was underwater, and so far away from Dimitri it hurt.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. 

“I suppose so,” Felix said, and turned away from the pond.

On a wide blanket Dimitri laid out his cook’s offerings: meat pies, fruit, cold cuts of poultry and ham, ale, big chunks of cheese next to a fragrant loaf of bread—and a berry tart, closely wrapped and only a little chipped and broken by their earlier exertions. Felix sat down, abruptly, legs crossed. He picked up a meat pie and bit into it, and the juice ran down his chin. Dimitri stared. 

“What?” Felix asked, mouth full, chewing. 

“Nothing.” Dimitri ducked his head. “Nothing.” 

Throughout lunch he looked furtively up at his friend. They spoke little, for Felix was not inclined to polite conversation, little nothings, and ate the way he did most things: for efficacy’s sake. Once or twice his eyes flicked upward to meet Dimitri’s, but he said nothing. Then—

“You’re not eating.”

“Yes I am,” Dimitri countered, holding up a morsel of cheese as an example.

“You’re not eating _enough_ ,” said Felix, exasperated, and nudged the platter of cold cuts in his direction. Dimitri obediently picked up a piece of ham and slathered a slice of bread with butter; this being done, Felix looked satisfied only when Dimitri took a bite. “Is this what you’re like?” he asked, disgusted. “You work all day long and you don’t eat enough. It’s typical.”

“Why does it revolt you so much?” Dimitri asked, softly, and Felix paused, and looked up at him with wide eyes. 

“It doesn’t. I don’t care.”

Dimitri smiled. “Have some of the tart. It’s good.”

“How would you know,” Felix scoffed, but nonetheless he accepted the bite Dimitri offered him. And then sat there, not eating, as Dimitri broke another piece and brought it up to his mouth. Dimitri licked red juice from his thumb and looked up at Felix, and found him arrested, staring. 

“Felix.”

“What.” Felix’s eyes didn’t move from his lips. 

“I,” said Dimitri, struggling, struggling to keep emotion under control. Felix had taken off his riding habit, and sat in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, black against white. He was all lithe grace, resting his weight against one hand on the grass, and his mouth was dark as a bruise, his fine eyes dark as shadows. He too wasn’t sleeping enough. He too was hiding from himself. Dimitri swallowed his last bite of berry tart, and then he reached out. 

He reached out. He slid his fingers across Felix’s cheek, registered the flutter of his eyelashes, the sharp intake of his breath. “Felix.” The name was a bare whisper between them. “I know that you do not … ”

“Shut up,” said Felix, and kissed him. 

Dimitri’s mouth parted. Kissing Felix was nothing like he had imagined, in the past, in the secret parts of his heart. Felix kissed with intent, and his hand gripped at Dimitri’s hair and held him there, against him, tight and close. He was inexperienced and uncertain; his heart beat a hardy tempo; but framing Felix’s face with his hands felt so true, so right: but pushing himself to his side, so that their bodies brushed together, Dimitri found that he wanted nothing more, nothing less, nothing else than this, forever. This kissing. These lips under his own. The picnic between them, forgotten and broken. The blanket crumpling up. 

Felix nipped at his lip, then, tartly, at his tongue. His free hand was in Dimitri’s collar, grasping into the fabric, pulling him even closer, until Dimitri wrapped his fingers around the back of his neck and held him away, panting a little. 

“Felix—” 

His eyes were wide and dark. He looked assessing, appraising. His mouth was kissed into a bruise, wet and full. 

“Shut _up_ ,” Felix said again, and this time he pushed Dimitri flat on his back and straddled him. He fisted his hands in Dimitri’s coat, shook him a little. “Saints. You—all along!—you—” Words appeared to fail him. He bent his head. 

Dimitri craned his neck to accept his kiss, and this time Felix did not let him take control: he kissed him viciously, dangerously, for all the world as though they had no time in the world; no world, nothing left. Dimitri’s hands slipped around him, and he felt the solidity and taut muscle of Felix’s body, the lines of him, the jut of his hipbones and the dip of his spine. He caressed up his back, and felt him shudder. He spanned his hands over Felix’s shoulderblades, and Felix made a little sound in the back of his throat and bit him; then licked at him like a kitten. Dimitri sucked on his tongue and felt him moan, deep in the chest. 

As they kissed the sun came out from behind the clouds. The branches here were tall, but a spot of the clearing was open, and through there came the warmest light of the early afternoon. It fell in a flood of brightness across Felix and Dimitri, kissing in the grass. Hands everywhere. Touching, everywhere. 

Suddenly it was supremely important that Felix understand—understand the depth of Dimitri’s emotion—supremely important that this should not be a single moment in time, but the beginning of something else altogether. Dimitri could not bear the thought that Felix should return home alone tonight. 

“Come—to Blaiddyd Hall,” he said, softly, drawing his thumbs down Felix’s cheekbones, “tonight. I want you.”

Felix’s face was flushed, with the sun. Under Dimitri’s ministrations his hair had come loose, and it fell across his shoulders in swathes of black. “Alright,” he said, in a low voice. “Alright.”

.

They returned home on foot, holding their horses’ bridles, hands just brushing. Dimitri’s stablemaster, upon seeing them arrive, lifted his eyebrows a fraction of an inch, yet expressed nothing but pleasure at seeing Felix, whom he had known as a boy. “I shall take care of her, make no mistake, master Fraldarius,” said he, indulgently, as Felix fussed over his mare. 

“You’ve grass all over,” Dimitri said fondly, and Felix snorted and said:

“So do you.”

“A bath for Mr. Fraldarius,” Dimitri asked of his housekeeper, who welcomed them in the hall.

She beamed upon them both. “Of course, my lord.”

“My lord,” Felix mimicked, when she was out of shot. “She’s known you from infancy. Known me too, for that matter.” And for a moment he was the contemptuous young man he had been in Garreg Mach, all over again. 

Dimitri said softly: “You’ll not persuade Mrs. Peters out of the proper etiquette she feels is due to us both,” and Felix shot him an exasperated look, but his eyes softened. 

The bath was duly taken; Dimitri had one of his own, his heart beating very fast as he changed clothes for dinner. “Thank you,” he said, to his valet, as the man would have fastened his cravat for him, “but I believe I can do without it tonight. ‘Tis only Felix.”

Dinner was served not in Lambert’s great dining-hall, which was fit to welcome thirty guests; but in the morning-room that abutted Dimitri’s bedroom. It had been his own mother’s once. He had most of his meals there, or in the library. When he voiced this thought, Felix looked skeptical.

“Surely you cannot expect me to dine alone in that grand old room?” Dimitri inquired, smiling, and sipping his wine. 

“I don’t expect you to dine at all,” Felix shot back. “I thought you only ate a few pieces of bread and worked through the night.”

This was very close to the truth. Dimitri winced. Felix rolled his eyes, speared a piece of meat on his fork, and chewed vigorously. 

.

Post-dinner brandy found them standing by the fireplace, exchanging glances. Suddenly Dimitri was shy; the afternoon, with its endless sunshine and Felix’s body resting on top of his own, felt very far away indeed. Felix stared moodily into the flames, and said nothing. Their conversation, which at dinner had centered around their mutual occupations whilst in the country, and a little around Lambert and Rodrigue’s affairs in Town, petered out; the spectre of Garreg Mach loomed over them, and with it the memory of Felix’s scorn. 

“Felix,” Dimitri said gently, putting his glass down at last. “Tell me about Glenn.”

“There’s nothing to say,” Felix said dully. “He’s dead. My father’s a fool. That’s all.”

“You did not use to be so harsh on your father.”

Felix’s eyes flashed. “Do you know what he told me? That _Glenn died a true soldier’s death_. He didn’t have to go to war. I’m the second son; it was _my_ duty. I never cared to be the heir.”

“I know you didn’t,” said Dimitri, helplessly. 

“I loved him,” Felix said, his eyes on the fire. “And now he’s dead. That’s all there is to it.”

Dimitri watched him; and for the first time he saw him not as his very own Felix, the friend of his childhood, but as the man Felix would become in another two or three years’ time. He would be Rodrigue’s heir, as Dimitri was Lambert’s. He would manage his estate. He, too, would be expected to marry. 

The thought hurt. 

“Enough of this,” Felix said, throwing the last of his glass in the flames—they flared, horribly—and, turning to Dimitri, lifted his chin. Dimitri caught the hint very quickly indeed. He lifted his hands to take Felix’s face between them, and lowered his lips to his. 

Lying in the grass, they had been but inches apart; like this, the difference in their heights showed true. Felix grunted in disapproval, and bit his lip, hard enough to sting. Dimitri could not but smile, his hands light on Felix’s jaw, trailing down to cover his neck, his throat. Their bodies were flush together now, warm in the heat of the fireplace, and as Dimitri’s fingers traveled lower Felix made a soft little sound in the back of his throat. He seemed utterly unaware of it. 

Together they got rid of each other’s waistcoats. Then it was all linen shirts, white and hot, and the strong lines of their bodies underneath. Dimitri traced the breadth of Felix’s shoulders, trailed his fingertips down his strong biceps and his arms. Felix was already struggling with the laces of Dimitri’s breeches, rucking up his shirt and wrapping solid, calloused hands around his narrow waist. 

“I want you,” Dimitri mumbled in his mouth. “I want—”

“Then stop saying it and act like it,” Felix snapped, and then brushed his lips across Dimitri’s jaw, as though in apology for his harsh tone. He relented. He said—and his voice was strangled: “Sit down.”

Dimitri was pushed. He stumbled back into a low armchair, and stared up at his friend, open-mouthed. “Felix … ”

Felix straddled him. He placed both of his hands on either side of Dimitri’s head and bent his head and kissed him; like this he had the better leverage. This time the kiss was deep and long, and Felix’s body, still mostly clothed, pressed down against Dimitri’s own in a tantalizing manner. His eyes were closed, and as Dimitri slipped his arms around his waist and brought him closer still, he smiled against his lips. Dimitri traced that smile with his tongue.

“I love kissing you,” he murmured. “I—”

“Shut up.” Felix’s hands, fisted in his hair. “Shut up, kiss me. I know you want to. At school—you would watch me, it was—”

“Foolish of me?” Dimitri guessed, kissing his jaw. 

“It felt wrong,” Felix admitted. “Not to have you there.”

“I was waiting for you, all along, to come back—”

“I know.” Felix pulled back. “I know.”

Dimitri traced his mouth with his thumb. “Why did you hate me so much?”

“I hate what you pretend to be,” Felix bit out. “Perfect, ideal, charming to all. The perfect heir. What Glenn should have been.”

Dimitri was stricken. “I’m not Glenn.”

“I _know_ that.” Felix’s eyes shut. “I don’t want you to be Glenn. I want you to be real.”

“I am real,” Dimitri promised, and kissed him, and kissed him. “I am. I am real, Felix, I—”

.

They woke the next morning, tangled up in one another, and naked in Dimitri’s bed. Uncharacteristically, Dimitri was the later to wake, and so found Felix watching him, propped up on his elbow, his mouth set in a firm line. Dimitri, still half-groggy, lifted his hand to brush Felix’s hair from his face, and stroked his palm over the pale curve of his shoulder. He pressed his thumb to his mouth, and then pressed his own mouth to the same spot, smiling. Felix lifted his chin, kissing him back, closing his eyes. 

“Come here,” Dimitri murmured, and rolled on top of him, settling with some satisfaction between Felix’s spread thighs. Felix’s long legs wrapped around him—one over his hip, the other curled over his knee—and he didn’t protest as Dimitri pushed his hands into the pillows and kissed his way down his chest. He was only half-hard, but his shaft pulsed in Dimitri’s palm when he cupped him; glancing up at his—friend, his—lover—Dimitri saw he was fighting down a much-satisfied grin. “Shall I—

“Get _on_ with it,” Felix groused, sounding befuddled with happiness and none too glad about it. 

Dimitri got on with it. 

There was something altogether spectacular about how responsive Felix was: his little sighs, his outright moans, echoing through the morning air. The trembling of his body. The shaking of his lovely thighs. By the time Dimitri had primed him so well Felix was cursing him out for a coward; by the time Dimitri had worked his fingers into him, stretching him nicely, with oil from his night-stand; by the time he pushed into him, long and sure, Felix was panting, had wrapped arms and legs around him, and could only barely answer his kisses. 

Dimitri made love to him, slow and long in the rising sun. 

If the servants knew, they said not a word. 

“I love you,” he said in Felix’s neck, after, when they were both boneless and sleepy and dazed and well-satisfied, lying in the bedsheets in the stretched-out beams of sun that fell from Dimitri’s window. 

Felix was silent for a long time. But then his fingers that were carding through Dimitri’s hair stilled, for a bare, single moment, and then he lifted Dimitri’s hand to his mouth and against his palm he said: “… Dimitri.”

**Author's Note:**

> There is a different story—a longer story—in this one. I tried to capture the trappings of a Regency AU while remaining in Fódlan; this meant that the Napoleonic war between England and France became a war between Faerghus and Adrestia, which is raging throughout, only noticed by Dimitri and Felix insofar as it cost Glenn his life. It also means that, sometime in the near future, Dimitri is going to go to war. When he comes back, five years later, he will be rather ... different, and Felix will have to deal with that. I may write this story someday. 
> 
> Changing the timeline also meant changing Felix and Dimitri's relationship, in this that Felix has not (yet) witnessed Dimitri's blood lust and been horrified by it; instead his distancing himself from Dimitri stems from his awareness that, Glenn being dead, they cannot be the thoughtless boys they once were. This too would have to be explored in a longer story, especially the ramifications of them being Rodrigue and Lambert's heirs. 
> 
> But for now, let them be young and happy and in love. 
> 
> [Come say hi on twitter!](https://twitter.com/o_honeybees)


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